Quaran-Team

I interrupt my regularly scheduled updates in the name of a Pandemic sweeping the Earth, currently settling right here in the USA. A couple of months ago, news articles began popping up about a virus spreading through China. When reading about this virus, the articles made it sound no worse than the seasonal flu, claimed it only threatened the elderly, and assured symptoms were mostly mild.

What's the big fuss about? I would think after reading the first few articles. China felt worlds away, and even as a person who worries about everything, I was able to cast my concerns aside. Until I heard a couple weeks later about how quickly the virus is spreading and how contagious it is and how it lies dormant for 5-14 days in people before they develop symptoms and how it is also highly contagious in its dormant period and actually it's not as mild as people were claiming it was and it causes many people of all ages to have to be on ventilators in the hospital and SURPRISE! it was making its way towards the United States and we were overwhelmingly underprepared for its arrival. 

The amount of late-night reading I have done on the Coronavirus is unhealthy. And the level of expertise I feel I have on the subject is eye-rolling. But this thing has consumed me for the past three weeks. 

The terrible thing for me is that it consumed me due to my constant anxiety that the worst possible thing is going to happen to me every moment of every day, so naturally, as I read about the virus, I was sure it was going to attack the United States and we wouldn't be prepared for it and we'd all be locked up and people would die at exponential rates and we'd never live normal lives again.

So my mind always goes there. On everything. Worst-Case Scenario Sarah is what I have named this part of my brain. But Worst-Case Scenario Sarah has NEVER been right. And that's how I calm down that part of my brain when it starts to nosedive into panic and paranoia. I tell it it's overreacting and that whatever it's worried about would never actually happen. 

Until Corona.

I strongly identified with an article titled, "Coronavirus is a 'personal nightmare' for people with anxiety because it has suddenly validated their habits." Worst-Case Scenario Sarah got it right and we didn't need to validate her paranoias, but here she is with her totes of emergency food storage, proudly nodding to herself and patting herself on the back each time we desperately dig into the food stash for another bag of sanity-saving peanut butter M&Ms. 

Yes, for the future history books that will be written about this time, this is the daily life of a Quarantined-From-Coronavirus Family. The worst-case has happened here (and everywhere across the U.S.) and Las Vegas (among many other places) has shut down as of yesterday in the hopes that everyone will stay home until they need to hunt down another roll of toilet paper (people are buying a lot of toilet paper. Many jokes have been made about it. You historians should know about that, too). 

And innocent mothers everywhere have, without warning, become their children's teachers, with no supplies, no experience, and no mercy.

Daily life has become extreme in that it's extremely calm and quiet and peaceful inside millions of homes that are a refuge from the medical battle that's threatening the world, claiming lives, putting doctors and nurses at war with an exponentially multiplying invisible enemy who threatens to make everything that once felt normal never again attainable. 

Like, you can find these quiet, beautiful moments at home with your family because you're all together with no outside responsibilities, no demands, and no time constraints with the entire nation's (and much of the world's) events canceled. Then suddenly you'll have visions of what life must be like at the hospitals where doctors are fighting the virus and the casualties are exploding and the resources are depleting and every day you wake up to more bad news. But you have to push all of that aside to make things feel normal and okay for your family and yourself. But then you feel bad for how normal life feels for you when there's so much struggle happening elsewhere. And you're constantly torn between what you're living and what you know is happening.

So we are quarantined with these juxtaposed feelings. And we are doing our part to slow the spread. And it feels weird that the most helpful thing you can do is to sit home and do nothing. But that's all we can do for now. And what is neat is to see people all over the world doing the same thing, doing their best to do what they're supposed to, to help slow things down for the medical field.

I love Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and they are putting little shows on from their houses while they are quarantined. And it's funny to see celebrities being quarantined just like us. And then you can see videos of people in Italy singing to each other from their balconies, staying home trying to save lives just like us. And it's so ironic that this thing everyone is doing in their own home by themselves can bring literally everyone in the whole world together as the pandemic blasts through each nation. 

And it's beautiful to get the gift of slowing down and refocusing and discovering how you find peace in an anxiety-inducing time. And I am in awe when I think that we all share in that experience together, and what an unexpected thing to have the whole world slow down, reflect, and heal together. 

The craziest thing is my kids have been so good. I have a blog post in the chute of a whole month's worth of naughtiness Jonah and Lincoln bestowed upon me. It's good. But it's not this month. My boys have been mostly cooperative and seem to also be enjoying the gift of slowing down, resting up, and having my full attention all the livelong day. Here's how we've kept busy during week one (of who knows how many)!

Our favorite children's book author, Mo Willems, has been doing daily doodles for kids on YouTube. Lincoln drew these pictures of Piggy and Gerald.

We also love to watch The Cincinnatti Zoo's daily Home Safari. They show a different animal each day and I've been having my boys write down what they learn about each animal. Lincoln drew this while learning about lions.

We are starting to get a little more direction from our school now, but week one was pretty much up to me to entertain and educate the kids. I was winging it 100% of the day. Thankfully, Mrs. Cox (Jeff's sister who teaches Kindergarten) came to our rescue! She has been putting videos out for her students and she shared some with us. 

She had the boys draw leprechauns. Lincoln's is on the left and Carson's is on the right. 

Sometimes my students erupt into a ball of chaos when they're supposed to be watching a science lesson.

We had a "picnic at the zoo" one afternoon, learning about hippos while we ate. 

And we've already gotten so bored that we've had to light up the fire pit for evening entertainment.

We nearly missed St. Patrick's Day because it feels like time has frozen since all the craziness began. Luckily I pulled it together for dinner with some green eats. 

We went on a scavenger hunt on St. Patrick's Day. We've had mandatory outside time every day after lunch for at least an hour. I've been SOOOOO thankful this is happening while we have bearable weather outside so we can enjoy every afternoon in the sunshine. It definitely helps break up the day and keeps us all happy when we move around.

I'm so grateful for everyone who is offering free entertainment and support for us lowly moms who are now being called teachers. When I told my kids on Monday we would be doing school at home, they took a minute to understand the concept. As I started giving them worksheets and things to keep them busy, we all quickly fell into our roles. My boys were the perfect students their regular teachers always praise them to be, and Lincoln even began calling me "Teacher" instead of "Mom" while school was in session. It has gone unimaginably smooth so far, though I'm concerned that might change as the newness wears off. For now, I am grateful though!

The boys helped me come up with a schedule similar to what they were doing already at school. Every time I did something different than the way Carson's teacher does things, Carson would tell me I was not doing it right and he had a hard time accepting a new way of learning. We're all figuring this out together, on a whim, but it's falling into place as time goes on!

The hardest one to entertain is...Jeff! He goes nuts being completely cooped up every day. Last Sunday (two days into quarantine) he was squirming to get out of the house. We headed up the mountain to find snow (in flip flops).

More time at home leaves more opportunities for messes. This is about as clean as it gets around here anymore. 

Our board games are finally getting some good use. Also, I bought Jeff a new tablet for his birthday and they were running a deal where you could buy two of them for just about the same price as one. Even though I didn't think we really needed two, I figured I might as well! Having two tablets has been very useful as most of the kids' schoolwork is online, so it's nice they don't have to share screens and can each get their work done at the same time! 

Jeff had also bought Eli this net to work on his baseball. It seemed like a frivolous buy at the time when we could just go practice at the park, but now I'm so glad to have it! Eli's baseball season was postponed right as it was revving up, so it's nice he can still practice.

We've used our time at home to potty train this dude and he's been a rockstar! We had done a little potty training over the summer several months ago, but he wasn't quite tuning in to his urges in time, so we backed off of it. He picked it right back up and was basically potty trained in a day this time around! 

Lincoln doesn't totally get why we can't go anywhere and keeps asking to go to parks, preschool, and other outings. He's doing okay though and loves having his brothers home. He especially loves feeling like a big kid as he does all of their schoolwork with them!

I feel nervous because I don't see how this quarantine thing ends, but we're making the best of it and preparing for a long road of togetherness. But I wouldn't want to be locked up with anybody else. We make a good Quaran-Team!